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Grateful Dead Live at Capitol Theater on 1970-03-21

by Grateful Dead

Publication date: 1970-03-21 ( check for other copies)

Topics: Ken Lee, Judy Lee, PCRP, John J Hance, Peter G, Evan Bellaff

Collection: GratefulDead

Band/Artist: Grateful Dead

Resource: DeadLists Project

Disc 1
Electric- I

1. Introdcution
2. Casey Jones
3. Dancin' In the Streets (!)
4. Easy Wind// (1,2,3)

Acoustic

5. Friend of the Devil (4)
6. Deep Elem Blues (5)
7. Don't Ease Me In
8. Black Peter
9. Wake Up Little Susie
10. Uncle John's Band (6)

Disc 2

1. ...wanna hear Pig Pen? (7)
2. Katie Mae

Electric- II

3. Cosmic Charlie
4. Saint Stephen>
5. Not Fade Away>
6. Jam>
7. Not Fade Away>
8. Midnight Hour>
9. Lovelight

Encore:
10. We Bid You Goodnight

Notes

-Original tape was baked in "Susie Q", shell replaced and transferred on a
Tascam 122mk3 via a Lucid ADA1000 Analog to Digital Converter directly to
disc on a Tascam CDRW700 by John Jay Hance.
-Cleanup performed by Peter G with Soundforge.
-Retracking with WavMerge2.1 and CDWav. SHN conversion with MKW (seekable)
by Evan Bellaff

"Sit Down, Shut up!"- Definitely the crowd mantra at this Grateful Dead show at the Capitol Theater. The energy of an extremely restless audience was beautifully captured on these tapes by Ken and Judy Lee. Not at all shy
about making their presence and demands known, this feisty New York crowd
tested the band's nerves during the first half of the show with an endless
arsenal of hoots, jeers, cries for quiet and a relentless bombardment of
song requests. Fortunately in typical Grateful Dead fashion, the band rose
to the occasion and harnessed and transmuted crowd chaos into one of the
most powerful, over the top and enjoyable finishes in Grateful Dead history. Enjoy this 2.5'nd installment of the Port Chester Resurrection Project- Grateful Dead at the Capitol Theater, March 21, 1970- Late Show.

Thanks to Ken, Judy, Peter and John Jay for another excellent effort. If you are ever at The Capitol Theater in Port Chester, stop by the balcony and say hello to Ken and Judy, but remember to be "vewy, vewy qwiet" (and no tapping on the railing, please)!-
Evan Bellaff (01/04)

Notes:
(!) 06:42-07:24 During this portion of a fine "Dancin'" jam, Phil and
Jerry's lead open into a state of grace which is breathtaking. The ensuing
7:30 of jam is quite beautiful as well.
(1) Pig mistakedly begins singing the first verse of "Easy Wind" as the
band opens the song with the chorus.
(2) "Easy Wind" cuts off at 7:36. The remainder of the track is a leadin
to the acoustic set, containing some great stage/crowd banter.
(3) 09:42 Bobby- Hey Let's hear some... let's hear some insults. Why
doesn't everybody turn to their neighbor and insult him as worst as you
possibly can.
10:36 Jerry- Take it easy out there you unruly pigs!
(4) 00:20 Audience member (screaming over Jerry's guitar intro to "Friend
of the Devil"):Please sit down!!
Jerry: Shut the f*@K up (second two words clearly muttered under
his breath).
(5) 03:37 One example of several audible instances of a fan tapping on the
balcony railing, to which Ken's microphones were fastened. This sound is
noticable during the acoustic set only.
(6) 00:16 Shhh!!!....Shhh!!!- This sound is none other than Judy Lee
containing crowd noise. Notice how the "clap along" to the UJB introduction
suddenly drops off into silence after the audience is well reprimanded.
(7) 00:00-00:29 Bobby: You guys wanna hear Pig Pen? ...well let him KNOW
about it ...I don't think he hears you, maybe you better shout a little
louder ...and here he is now folks, Pig Pen!!!
00:43 Pig Pen: You probably heard this one last night because it's the
only one I know. (over noisy crowd) Yeah, you can't hear the mistakes
unless you shut up!

Addeddate: 2008-04-08 12:52:04

Identifier: gd1970-03-21.late.aud.lee.pcrp.21779.shnf

Lineage: Cassette Master> Soundforge> cd> SHN

Location: Port Chester, NY

Taped by: Recorded by Ken & Judy Lee on a Sony pc-124 cassette deck with Sony dynamic mics on Norelco cassettes. Microphones were set up in the balcony with a 10-20 foot spread.

Transferred by: John J Hance

Type: sound

Venue: Capitol Theater

Year: 1970

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Reviews

Reviewer: happytrails - - September 14, 2022
Subject: How could the audience be expected to settle down?

So... they start this show with two massive intense loud funky songs... "oh, and by the way, we have these pretty little ditties we just wrote of which you will be completely unaware, and frankly won't sound like much we've done before except maybe Mountains of the Moon..."
Great show but who did they (GD) think they were? artists or something!?
And as New York ever did... demanded that the band prove why the hell should I (the stereotypical NY audience) listen to you bastards... Its a beautiful streetfight!
Love that the Dead won! and as a result so did the audience! As ever these recording remind me so much of my own experiences with music and the Dead!

Reviewer: HaightAshbury - - February 26, 2019
Subject: SIT DOWN?

Silly New York folks you aren't suppose to sit at a Dead show

Reviewer: Darrylizer - - May 1, 2015
Subject: Tremendous performance, acceptable sound

Wow, the performance is off the chain. The fantastic jammed out and multifaceted Dancing runs at about 18 minutes and is more of journey than a song. A superb Easy Wind is next and if you wanted more jamming you got it. Its 8 minutes of bouncing improvisational bliss complete with an outstanding solo from Bob. Unfortunately it's cut and what follows is about four minutes of obnoxious audience noise. Which leads into a nice acoustic set including the second performance of Friend Of The Devil. After the acoustic instruments are put away the band launches into Cosmic Charlie followed by a Stunning St. Stephen>NFA that has a China Cat Sunflower jam section that leads back into NFA. The Midnight Hour>Lovelight closer is truly remarkable with Pigpen in full bore blues shouter mode. The Midnight Hour is exceptionally well played and The Lovelight builds to a mighty climax that is the most energetic I've heard from the Grateful Dead.

Throughout the show the boisterous and quite noisy audience spurs the band on and visa versa. At one point Garcia says "shut the fuck up" and Bob exhorts the crowd to turn to their neighbor and insult them as much as they can. The audience complies with gusto. I'd say the energy of the performers and audience comes through nicely, ha. Even though during NFA and bits of the acoustic set some exuberant fan starts "drumming" on the balcony railing (which is where the microphones were placed, youch), and the audience clapping along is distracting, (I'm listening to a recording of a show played 45 years ago that I didn't attend. I'm trying to hear the music not some non-musicians "participating" and covering up the band), I'd recommend giving this show a serious listen. To say there was a lot of energy is an understatement. To bad there's no soundboard.

Reviewer: doug_the_dude - - February 5, 2014
Subject: --

SO wonderful. I don't know about you guys, but I find these NY crowds eternally obnoxious. I don't know how the boys managed. Actually, Bobby really is the master of crowd control.

Both the early and late shows are priceless - they're both not embedded onto one page. Grab 'em both!

Reviewer: chris phillips - - September 22, 2013
Subject: 3/21, 6/24, 11/8

The spirit of the Port Chester shows, in general, is where it's at.
Not to downplay Pigpen at all within these shows, Jerry sounds exactly perfect. That propels things significantly.

We are in Ken Lee's debt, nevertheless.

Reviewer: njpg - - May 12, 2013
Subject: Crazy

I would not have liked to have been in this audience: it's not the mellow crowd I became accustomed to in the 80s and onwards...then again, I never DID see an east coast show. Anyway, really good jams and pretty good audio for a '70 AUD.

Reviewer: Jersey'sFinest - - March 21, 2013
Subject: Love is Real, Not Fade Away

The crowd clapping along on NFA is distracting?! Wow. Please log off, step away from the computer, and give this whole "I'm a DeadHead" thing some thought, Bro. Wow. God Bless The Boys and all of you out there who miss clapping along during Not Fade Away. My Love is still here and I hope yours is too. Blessings and PEACE:::: Ry

Reviewer: EstimatedProphet082508 - - September 15, 2012
Subject: FOTD

August West, according to DEADBASE X, the 1st FOTD was the previous night (3-20-70) same venue
Great Aud Tape--nice and clear

Reviewer: sparkyperry - - December 11, 2010
Subject: @bootmenow

I believe the introduction says " From San Francisco, The Grateful Dead "

Reviewer: Davidb1953 - - December 11, 2010
Subject: Capitol Theater late shows

I was fortunate to be at both late shows of this run. Catfish opened both shows. Catfish himself is a very good blues singer but unfortunately his bass player created a problem when, the first night he kept pushing the crowd to clap in time with the band. He did the same thing the second night and the audience booed him very loudly. I have seen video of Catfish Hodge and owned the first Catfish album (Epic 1970) which is quite good. I was firmly on the bus by now and the Dead were fantastic both nights.

Reviewer: bootmenow - - March 21, 2010
Subject: not sure if this is right?

How come at the beginning, he says San Francisco, The Grateful Dead?

This is supposed to be in New York, Right?

Thanks

Reviewer: gphishmon - - December 29, 2009
Subject: March Madness

The Dead had lost TC earlier that year but were still quite a psychedelic band. Nowhere is that more evident than during the Dancin' jams of 1970. Harpur's 5/2/70 is the gold standard, of course, but this one has some incredibly creative playing, especially from Phil, with a bass line reminiscent of the peak of the Caution jam (A - G - F - E) appearing in a different context. Though it's almost 18 minutes long, this one feels like they cut it off too short, like they still had more to say. Easy Wind continues with exceptional melodic and rhythmic playing from Jerry; unfortunately, the end is cut off. One of the better Midnight Hours I've heard morphs into the Lovelight ending in a way that sounds planned. One moment they're in a quiet interlude but still clearly in the key of D, then the next they're playing the E - A of Lovelight, and Pigpen comes right in. Some of the talking is pretty humorous as well (It's your show now!!).

Four stars for the music, 3 for the sound.

Reviewer: _August_West_ - - September 7, 2008
Subject: Sympathy for the audience recording #1

This is a great show and for so many reasons. The first being that this may be the first known performance of 'Friend of the Devil'.

However, on top of that there are alot of great rare songs with 'Walking the Dog' and 'He Was A Friend of Mine' in the early show following with an amazing acoustic set in the late show.

However, on top of all this, this audience recording perfectly highlights the tribulations the band had to go through in 1970. With the audience calling out for 60s classics like 'Saint Stephen' and 'Dark Star', the band has to struggle to introduce their new folk material.

On top of this, the nature of how this very special audience recording even came to the public is yet another interesting aspect to this rare find.

And to say a little about audience recordings, the energy is always better than soundboard recordings. So many times I'm listening to a board and faintly hear clapping, with this recording when the crowd digs a song, you know about it and it puts it all in perspective.

I could go on about why I'm so enchanted by this recording, which is truly my personal favorite of 1970 but I'll finish by saying download and enjoy.

Follow the tour: 1970
gratefuldeadlive.blogspot.com

Reviewer: He Live's - - April 9, 2008
Subject: important additions

this version contains stuff not available in previous incarnations -- thanks folks.......

this dancin' SMOKES!

hey kids, put your disco dancin down for a sec..... the boys had been strechin' this tune out for a long time before they put the flanger on it -- hot stuff!

excellent recording. thank you, DEAD WORKER BEEs!

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